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Emergency Landing


Steve1962

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Well, back now from a weeks rest in Tenerfife, however the flight home on the new Dreamliner was eventful as we experienced an emergency landing at Gatwick early last evening.

 

We were circling over Gatwick for more than twenty minutes, with complete radio silence when a member of the cabin crew announced that we needed to prepare for an emergency landing, instructing all passengers to fasren seatbelts and to turn off all devices/remove earphones, and then to prepare to assume the brace position when informed to do so.

Before most of the passengers had time to compute what he had just said, the shout came out to do as we were told, and to assume the brace position.

 

This we did and the plane descended, landing on the tarmac with a terrific thud and very loud roar(reverse thrust?) from the engines, followed by very fast deceleration before coming to rest halfway down the runway, with Fire appliances et al following us until we stopped.

 

There followed a loud round of applause (relief) and then the Captain's voice announced in a very calm manner the reason why the emergency landing was necessary:

 

During preparation for landing, the flaps on both front and back of the wings had failed to operate, and the nose wheel would not come down either - thus the reason for circling, as they crew attempted to resolve the issues and plan for the necessary emergency to follow.

 

In the end, they managed to get the nose wheel down, and the flaps to operate enough to make a landing possible, so they went for it.

 

When the plane came to a stop, we had to wait to be towed off the runway and parked up at the nearest practical location, then we were escorted off and bussed to the terminal to wait for our luggage.

 

During this event, several passengers became very traumatised but were very quickly attended to as soon as the plane had stopped.

My wife was badly shaken as she is not a great plane passenger at the best of times, so I took great care to comfort her as best I could.

 

Thankfully all are safe and well, and we are now home.

 

The crew were exemplary, even though they admitted that they had never had to carry this action out for real before - just goes to show that you can never have too much training for such events.

 

I'll be keeping a close eye on the wife tonight and tomorrow in particular - ironically although she hates flying, she always watches those Aircrash Investigation programmes.

 

We are off to Canada in September, so I'm hoping that enough time will have passed between now and then for her to be less concerned than she naturally is right now.

 

Me,

Well - at the time I was so busy trying to comfort my wife that I never gave a thought to anything else, least of all what the outcome might be.

 

Now, upon reflection, I can see that we were 342 very lucky passengers, and along with the crew, we won't forget this day for the rest of our lives.

 

Steve

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Scary! :eek: My list of highly respected people in this world starts with Doctors, then quickly skips to Commercial Airline Flight Crews. :thumbsup:

 

 

Pat

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Marty Hill

Steve, happy that you and wife are safe. Hope she can forget and enjoy the next trip to Canada.

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Steve, happy that you and wife are safe. Hope she can forget and enjoy the next trip to Canada.

 

Thanks Marty - she's in a much more positive state of mind today, and life is back to normal.

 

Now going to sit down together and watch the England vs Sweden World cup game.

 

Keep safe buddy.

 

Steve

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Bill_Walker

Wow! Well done to the aircrew, maybe a not-so-well-done to the maintenance personnel, and I'm happy you all came through it. You've experienced a very rare event. I'd bet lots of us here, like me, have done lots of commercial passenger flying without ever experiencing an emergency.

 

ironically although she hates flying, she always watches those Aircrash Investigation programmes.

Could it be that she hates flying because she watches those programmes? It probably gives her the impression that such incidents are far more likely than they really are. Although it occurs to me that having experienced an emergency with a positive outcome might actually increase her confidence in air travel.

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Steve....glad it all worked out. The word emergency in an airplane always gets your attention, but in most cases it doesn't mean crash. There were 238 emergency landings at Heathrow last year with zero fatalities. It's not uncommon for the big US airports like ORD, JFK, DFW, etc to have close to one a day. That doesn't mean it isn't serious business but as you know doesn't always mean crash. I don't know if that would help the wife unit to know that or scare her even more.

 

What constitutes an emergency....Anytime the Pilot in Command decides so and declares that emergency to Air Traffic Control. I've declared and emergency a few times in my flying career and have only had one event that bent the airplane ...no injuries ever.

 

You will never know for sure how serious it was, but reading your post I have some theories. Marty and others might have some views as well...or not. First glad all safe and sound. Hope the passengers behaved well.

 

Since they circled overhead, they were likely trying to sort out the issues by reading the books and talking to a mechanic/engineer who knows the airplane systems backwards and forwards. SOP. Landing without flaps and slats is part of every pilots training from the time they fly Cessna to airbus. It's required training. The challenge it creates is you lose a good bit of lift without them which requires a much higher landing speed. The plane flies just fine without them in the down position. The faster landing can create a few problems....the biggest two being do I have enough runway to stop and will my tires hold up...

 

If memory serves me right Gatwick is about 11,000 ft. I don't know the specs on an a Dreamliner but with that much weight and speed...it probably explains the hard landing. The pilot likely planned the landing that way. Heathrow is about 13000 ft so if they were really worried they couldn't stop they could have gone to Heathrow an picked up an extra 2000 ft. The pilot most likely flew slightly above the minimum landing speed in that configuration so when he touched down he touched down giving the longest runway possible and with no float whatsoever. Max Braking, Reverse Thrusters full, and stop as soon as possible.

 

For the nose wheel...hard to know, but most likely it either wouldn't go down by normal means or the indicator was just bad and it really was down. If they couldn't get down normally they have backups allowing the gear to be released manually and even pumped down...who knows but sounds like it did go down and was locked in place otherwise you would have enjoyed an amazingly loud metal on concrete sparks show...not usually a huge deal by the way.

 

 

Anyway...….glad all worked out. Tell your wife the pilots are well well trained and practiced to handle everything you experienced. Hope your next flight is far more relaxing.

Edited by Skywagon
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All's well that ends well. :thumbsup:

 

Glad to hear that there were no injuries.

 

Time will help with your wife.

 

Best to you both.

 

 

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Steve....glad it all worked out. The word emergency in an airplane always gets your attention, but in most cases it doesn't mean crash. There were 238 emergency landings at Heathrow last year with zero fatalities. It's not uncommon for the big US airports like ORD, JFK, DFW, etc to have close to one a day. That doesn't mean it isn't serious business but as you know doesn't always mean crash. I don't know if that would help the wife unit to know that or scare her even more.

 

What constitutes an emergency....Anytime the Pilot in Command decides so and declares that emergency to Air Traffic Control. I've declared and emergency a few times in my flying career and have only had one event that bent the airplane ...no injuries ever.

 

You will never know for sure how serious it was, but reading your post I have some theories. Marty and others might have some views as well...or not. First glad all safe and sound. Hope the passengers behaved well.

 

Since they circled overhead, they were likely trying to sort out the issues by reading the books and talking to a mechanic/engineer who knows the airplane systems backwards and forwards. SOP. Landing without flaps and slats is part of every pilots training from the time they fly Cessna to airbus. It's required training. The challenge it creates is you lose a good bit of lift without them which requires a much higher landing speed. The plane flies just fine without them in the down position. The faster landing can create a few problems....the biggest two being do I have enough runway to stop and will my tires hold up...

 

If memory serves me right Gatwick is about 11,000 ft. I don't know the specs on an a Dreamliner but with that much weight and speed...it probably explains the hard landing. The pilot likely planned the landing that way. Heathrow is about 13000 ft so if they were really worried they couldn't stop they could have gone to Heathrow an picked up an extra 2000 ft. The pilot most likely flew slightly above the minimum landing speed in that configuration so when he touched down he touched down giving the longest runway possible and with no float whatsoever. Max Braking, Reverse Thrusters full, and stop as soon as possible.

 

For the nose wheel...hard to know, but most likely it either wouldn't go down by normal means or the indicator was just bad and it really was down. If they couldn't get down normally they have backups allowing the gear to be released manually and even pumped down...who knows but sounds like it did go down and was locked in place otherwise you would have enjoyed an amazingly loud metal on concrete sparks show...not usually a huge deal by the way.

 

 

Anyway...….glad all worked out. Tell your wife the pilots are well well trained and practiced to handle everything you experienced. Hope your next flight is far more relaxing.

 

 

David,

Thanks for the insight - always good to understand these things - I'd say you were spot on - the plane actually stopped with plenty of runway left - I can't really express just how quickly it came to a standstill from the point of contact with the ground, and this without any protest or squeals from the tyres.

 

I've nothing but admiration for the crew as they had never experienced this before either, and remained both professional and calm throughout.

We also had a call yesterday from the airline asking us how we are, which was a nice touch.

 

We are off to Canada in September and this won't put either of us off - the wife is much better today and has accepted that these things happen.

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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